The inside scoop on the sale of 2201 Baker from a plugged-in tipster:
“All contingencies have been removed and the funds all went into escrow Monday 9/14. City to record the deed today and the deal’s done. Sale price will indeed be confidential…
Purchaser is a single dude, believe it or not.”
Based on the design, we believe it. We’ll let you know when that “confidential” sales price per the MLS becomes public record per the city. And Dude, don’t forget those invitations to the housewarming.
∙ An Eco-Friendly “Baker Acres” Prepares Its Return (2201 Baker) [SocketSite]
can someone explain confidential sales to me? doesn’t this just delay the information until it becomes public record? what is the purpose of doing so?
couple more things to investigate in D7 that I haven’t seen posted here:
– Paul Hwang’s Baker St property that showed in contract last week now relisted higher?
– Tim Brown’s TIC(s) on Fillmore Street from that famous non-auction, now for sale again with the same pictures? I don’t belive all of these units were ever really sold.
more realtor games?
the Dude is going to have a good time sipping white-russians in this pad.
I hope he’s not disappointed when he gets to the to property and sees the garble of power lines out front, unlike in said above photo. I know it’s all a matter of taste, and style, but as a single twenty-something male born and raised in the REAL SF, this is the last place I would ever choose to live.
When you’re as rich as this guy, the party comes to you. At least thats what I imagine it would be like…
I’m sure he’ll be doing more than just ‘sipping’ white Russians at this uber-shag pad.
Ryan wrote:
> I know it’s all a matter of taste, and style, but as a single
> twenty-something male born and raised in the REAL SF,
> this is the last place I would ever choose to live.
When I was in my 20’s (20 years ago) I lived in a cool warehouse on Howard Street. The property was not zoned residential and we were breaking the zoning laws living there, but we had a lot of great parties and had a skateboard ¼ pipe in our “living room”…
Just 10 years later I owned a home in Burlingame in a sleepy boring residential street… If you were a single guy in your 30’s and were looking to marry in to a successful SF family (and have a father in law who would sponsor you in to the Bohemian, PU & SFG Clubs) I can’t think of a better place to live…
You are right Jimmy. Having been to a couple of such parties myself, I can vouch for your statement “When you’re as rich as this guy, the party comes to you.” .
Lust-Fest is a more appropriate term to describe the “Party”, but ah, we live in a world of political correctness and constant micro-scrutiny and community backlash for saying things that should be allowed to be said, with the words that should be allowed to be uttered.
I really like the wine cellar.
What’s a pederast, Walter?
I’m sure there will be more than a few housewarming parties for this one.
MARK IT ZERO!
“If you were a single guy in your 30’s and were looking to marry in to a successful SF family […]”
Why would a very, very loaded single guy in his 30s want all that baggage?
Do we know who the buyer is? My wife said she was sure it would be a single man, because no woman would choose to live in this house, at least no woman with that kind of money.
Resp:
yes, brown and company recorded some fake deeds on the fillmore street tic’s…and all so you have something to talk about. one unit left sport, why dont you step up?
Back when the agent’s marketing website first went up (2201bakerst.com) I commented :
“Also I see that the SS editor has replaced the realistic exterior photo with the touched up one (with ugly web of wires removed). Normally I’d start whining about the photoshop job, but at least on the realtor’s site both photos are presented so nothing is being hidden.”
Well guess what ? 2201bakerst.com has removed that realistic exterior photo from their gallery.
So I retract my comments praising how McGuire was presenting honest marketing materials. Just more of the same selling agent trickery here. People perusing the marketing photos have are being fooled to believe that those nice curbside viewpoints are real. They are not : someone edited out the mess of telephone wires.
The fact that SFAR allows such deceit has convinced me to minimize involving their members in my transaction as much as possible. Any information coming from SFAR affiliated agents and organizations cannot be trusted and therefore has little value.
Sure, there are honest credible members of the organization out there, but how can you tell the honest members from the dishonest so long as SFAR welcomes all ?
Geesh. The purchaser is obviously Bruce Wayne.
Yes, Milkshake. You should definitely go out and find yourself a non-afilliated broker/agent. I’m sure they are much more reputable, lacking in the technology to remove wires, but definitely more reputable.
Hey anon$random() : my point is that I see zero value in information coming from a SFAR agent. There is no value in the “brand” to this buyer.
The non-affiliated agent that I work with on the buy side might become myself.
If I were SFAR, I would try to find ways to add value to my brand. Increasing integrity is rather easy to do. All it takes is a code of ethics and a little enforcement.
its just funny to me that you’re getting your panties in a bunch over some photo shopped wires on a property that you couldnt afford to have cleaned, let alone buy. i mean, did you go to the property and decide to back out once you realized there were wires?
you said: there is zero value in information coming from an sfar agent.
rash generalizations like really discredit your baseless argument even more than the argument itself.
Seems to me that six plus million should get a place that…….people would compliment you on at the very least. This place just…. looks drab. All these ¨green gizmos¨always cost way more than they ever repay.
But then, its not my money.
That home has slightly more windows than jail.
anon$random – I can assure you that all of my panties are neatly folded and stacked in order of the days of the week : hardly in a bunch.
Thanks for the put down that I could not afford this property. It really put me in my place.
But that isn’t the point. Regardless of affordability of any particular property, I want information from a credible source. How can I tell the whether a selling agent is delivering credible information or issuing lies ? Some things I can check out in person like whether or not the photos in the marketing material portray the property accurately or not. Other statements are harder to check.
SFAR members would be wise to stick to lies that are difficult to verify. Like “we already have 4 offers over asking”. As if I will ever believe that one again.
By publishing easily checked lies, it just discredits the whole organization. Like I said, I’m sure that there are plenty of honest agents out there, but when you’re a buyer or seller you’re dealing with a random mix of agents from the other side if the transaction. Without any self-policing, you really cannot trust anyone except those with whom you have a close and personal relationship.
If I were an honest SFAR member, I’d be pressing SFAR to enforce ethics at least where such lies can be easily checked, discrediting the entire membership.
Which is where SocketSite comes in. Sure, most of us are anons. Some of the statements here are bogus lies too. But very few here have an interest in getting a specific deal done. And in the mix, a lot of truth that previously was not available to mere mortals buying and selling properties comes to light.
If this guy really had that much money, he would choose to live in a better block. Like Vallejo/Fillmore all these houses there are being fixed and the neighborhood gets better and better. And those are real mansions. Every time I go jogging on the Fillmore steps I just stare at that beautiful brick house on the corner that was just redone a few years ago! Now that is great taste and screams power! And there are no power lines there or Muni Line doesn’t run there. I think the house is 2300 Vallejo.
I have never seen a greater mismatch between interior and exterior in my life.
“If this guy really had that much money, he would choose to live in a better block”
like you know what ‘this guy’ would do.
there are better blocks, for sure; especially at this price point. but your opinions about ‘this guy’ are ignorant, at best, senor george.
If this guy really had that much money, he would choose to live in a better block. Like Vallejo
yeah, the $5M shag pad on Russian Hill. I wouldn’t want to raise the Brady Bunch there but it’s perfect for a dude.
I was looking at that more closely and it’s a flag lot. It can borrow the backyard of its southern neighbor to some extent. The living room and kitchen have no views, but the upper bedroom — yowsa. In my mind I dream of playing that date out. The pad on Vallejo really has understated value until you get to the tiny upstairs tower. Can’t even afford the property tax on it, alas.
Which is where SocketSite comes in. Sure, most of us are anons. Some of the statements here are bogus lies too. But very few here have an interest in getting a specific deal done. And in the mix, a lot of truth that previously was not available to mere mortals buying and selling properties comes to light
Did it ever occur to you that some people simply do not want their business in the street (or on a blog) contemporaneously? Yes, the sales price will be revealed in time. Those with a specific interest will find it. Those with a fleeting interest, chiefly driven by a need to express derisive commentary?
They are kept out of the loop by design. Why that is difficult to understand is not known.
“They are kept out of the loop by design. Why that is difficult to understand is not known.”
No, anonn, you’re the one that misses the point. It is not an issue of being “kept out of the loop.” Quite the opposite. The problem is affirmative misinformation being spewed by the realtors. They specifically want to keep the public in the loop, but with inaccurate or incomplete information so that they are deceived. It is really no more than a species of fraud. MoD is exactly right. The decent realtors out there should enforce sound ethical practices and punish, rather than defend, those in their field who engage in the numerous unethical business practices out there.
Huh? The case in point is not that. I am speaking about the asterisk, or confidential sale, the case depicted in this thread, which is requested by clients. Go stand on a milk crate elsewhere.
^Will never happen. Lying is so far ingrained in their culture that even the ones who don’t do it find it unexceptional when the others blatantly lie to their clients and to the public. There is a lot of money in the profession, and it looks really easy, so it attracts a lot of people who think dishonesty is how you should approach the business.
The industry makes it a point to hide as much information as they can. This further attracts dishonest people because the system is seemingly set up just for them! Can you imagine a better system for a con artist?!
The best approach is to recognize that con men are very good at lying, that you won’t know if “your” realtor is one of the good ones or bad ones, and so trust none of them. Verify everything and listen to what they say through your own filter. Be skeptical of everything.
There is a higher than normal probablility that the realtor you chose is one of the dishonest ones. But realize that might mean 20% vs 2% of the general population: the vast majority that I’ve met are ethical and honest.
anonn, nope, you’re wrong. The specific point that got this discussion going was the agent’s photoshopping out the wires, an affirmative misrepresentation of the property. MoD and tipster are right that this is just one example of a culture of dishonesty that the honest brokers out there should discourage rather than reflexively defend.
Ethics? For photoshop?
Do consumers confuse a car at high speed on an empty highway with commuter traffic?
Do they think the fair haired golden boy sitting next to the older man will be the offspring they spawn when they purchase a Phillippe Patek wristwatch?
OR that the long languid limbs of tall gaunt women posed by the glass windows of urban view high rises are included inside like a cracker jack prize?
Come on.
Realtors provide disclosures, more than disclosures to sign than a M&A deal.
Creating an appealing photograph to entice someone to come see for themselves
isn’t unethical, it’s advertising.
If advertising in unethcial
go round ’em up and throw them all in jail! Let’s start with Martha Stewart!
Oh , wait….
Oh. Lies –> confidential sale —> overreaction by me. My bad. Yeah, why some people choose to photoshop out overhead wires I do not know.
But Socketsite could always photoshop the telephone wires back into the pictures it appropriates. That would be intrepid blog reporting, IMO.
Sorry, Kathleen – you couldn’t be any more wrong. If an agent doesn’t posses the ethics to honestly display a photo of their listing without photoshopping it, where does that lead? What else will they not be honest about and try and make up some excuse? It’s a very slippery slope.
If you flew in from out of town to look at properties and you schedule a viewing for what looks to be a gorgeous place on a level street and you get there and find the street is at a 45 degree angle, wouldn’t you be slightly irritated? Or just chalk it up to “advertising”?
kathleen – There’s a big difference between using the emotional string pulling tricks you mention in adverts versus outright misrepresentation of the product.
Removing unattractive features in photoshop is misrepresenting the product. Those features either cannot be changed (the slope of a street for example) or are very expensive to change (baseboard heaters). It is deceptive to market a product containing those negative features using photos that would lead a buyer to think that they do not exist.
It is one thing to simply leave out photos of an ugly worn out bathroom. That is fair game. Also fair game is including a photo of women standing in a shower.
But a photo that says “This is what the front of the house looks like” portrays an impossible view, that is deceptive.
You started your post with “Ethics ? For photoshop ?” as if it were a ridiculous question. It isn’t. There are journalistic photo editing ethics. Why can’t similar ethics be applied to real estate ? It would be so easy and it really does not affect the profitability of the real estate industry.
What is the justification for deceptively enhancing a property’s appeal by editing photos ? I can see the advantage to the seller, but does that improve or degrade the market as a whole ? Who are the caretakers of the real estate market ?
A better approach would be for ALL realtors to lie. The problem is that some do and some don’t. If you knew the photo was fake, then you wouldn’t be disappointed.
For example, the Realtors should just post the same photo of the same house for every listing in the MLS. This one, for example. Then everyone could ooh and ahh over the pretty photos, knowing full well that the home they were about to visit bore no relationship to it whatsoever. Then Kathleen would be correct: it’s just advertising.
But until then, there is, or was, some expectation that the photos were accurate. Silly us: expecting honesty from Realtors. See, lies are just “Advertising”. More lies are just “Salesmanship”. Whatever. Kathleen just innocently proved my point: they think it’s OK. They have justified it over and over again to the point that they believe it.
Kathleen: it’s *lying* not advertising. Advertising is putting something in its best light, not purporting that a negative of your product doesn’t exist and then showing your customers proof that the negative isn’t there. Photoshopping out overhead wires is like removing trans fats from the label of a package of cookies: not advertising, lying. But you’ll never see it that way: you’re too far gone.
The rest of us understand, and that’s why I trust no realtor. I’m sure you consider yourself a very honest person. You aren’t. You really aren’t.
kathleen wrote:
> Do consumers confuse a car at high speed on an
> empty highway with commuter traffic?
Has any manufacturer ever photoshopped out ugly parts of the car like the exhaust system (or ignition wires on under hood shots)?
> Do they think the fair haired golden boy sitting next to the
> older man will be the offspring they spawn when they purchase
> a Phillippe Patek wristwatch?
You have to admit that on average the guys that can afford $30K Patek Philippe watches are married to women that are much better looking on average and they have kids that are better looking kids than average. You could almost argue that it would be false advertising to show a guy in a Patek Philippe ad with a short fat homely wife and a fat ugly kid…
> OR that the long languid limbs of tall gaunt women posed by
> the glass windows of urban view high rises are included inside
> like a cracker jack prize?
Just like with expensive watches the guys that live in nice urban condos are more likely to date tall thin woman than the poor guys that live in Mission District BMR units…
> Creating an appealing photograph to entice someone to come
> see for themselves isn’t unethical, it’s advertising.
I bet that Kathleen posts photos when she was 10 years younger and 20 pounds lighter to her match.com page and thinks that posting a photo of her 10 year old beat up Honda when it was new to Craig’s List when she wants to sell it is just “advertising” and is not “unethical” at all…
You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!
A comment on RE ethics: In Nevada (and it may be particular to the office we used) we had to sign a form acknowledging (concealed in much legalese) that the Agent was not our friend and was acting in their own self interest for the purpose of making money.
As Dad told me so many years ago: If they’ll steal for you they’ll steal from you
Officially Closed and Confidential, as predicted.
I am highly ethical.
There are degrees to everything. To say the use of any photo shop to showcase a home, is unethical is just plain silly.
You can clean up a photo without being a liar.
Putting Oprah’s head on Ann Margaret’s body, that is going to far. (1979 TV Guide) NBC photo shopped 10 years and 15 pounds off of of katie kouric for a publicity ad. Does it make her smarter if she is thinner? Will her brain stop working if her waistline expands? No, but NBC’s publicity department did it because they thought it made her look better. Why do people care? Beats me.
If you are flying in to look at houses over a couple of days, you better hope your realtor previewed everything you were interested in before your feet ever hit the ground. They could look and see if overhead wires and stop signs that are missing from photos designed to showcase the style of the home are out of the pix to showcase the home and not because they are right smack dab in the middle of the living room window. It might not be the wires that are the big drawback, it could be the crack house next door.
“I bet that Kathleen posts photos when she was 10 years younger and 20 pounds lighter to her match.com page” You’ll never know will you? (You can find pix o’me @ funny&stinky.com)
All the images I referred to are currently running as advertisements in October 2009 magazines. The Phillipe Patek father/son ad is in Octobers Architectural Digest. The gals in glass condo home ads can be found in recent issues of the Sunday New York Times Magazine.
I study ads carefully as I enjoy marketing.
“To say the use of any photo shop to showcase a home, is unethical is just plain silly.”
Who made this statement ? Anyone ? Certainly not me.
In fact throughout the years I’ve made comments distinguishing photo edits that are deceptive and those edits that are merely adjustments to correct a photo. In fact I praised a home photographer a few months ago who employed exposure compensation to make some interior scenes more realistic.
I’m too lazy to find my old posts where I outlined the sorts of edits that are ethical, but let me take a shot at it again here :
OK :
– cropping (cutting off sides of an image)
– exposure compensation
– curve adjustments (um, probably too technical to get into here, but related to exposure compensation)
– monochrome conversion (i.e. black and white from color image)
– white balance adjustment (color correction)
– sharpening
marginal :
– perspective “correction” used to make a room look bigger
– telephoto shots used to represent “views” without portraying the peephole context
– blurring unattractive features
– excessive saturation enhancement (looks gaudy anyways)
deceptive :
– removing things that exist
– adding things that don’t exist
– substituting views from other locations
– wholesale color changes
– transformations (stretching, perspective, etc.) to make a house look taller or wider
That’s probably not a complete list and besides, just one chilled dairy beverage’s opinion.
Agree with all your thoughts Milkshake, but could we add to the “O.K.” list as an acceptable photo, when an interior view of a bathroom shower has two agents standing holding mugs standing inside of it added?
Kathleen’s casual excusing of misrepresentations in real estate listings as an expected phenomenon of marketing, and e caveat emptor, is precisely the problem others identified. The industry has “defined deviance down” and now tolerates and even expects such unethical behavior when it should be policing its ranks. Her proposed answer to the expected misleading realtor practices is “hire your own realtor to go scrutinize things.” Yeah, sure, that works.
Often times someone travels to a strange city to look at properties because they need a place to live when a job transfer takes them to that city. Time is limited and They rely on a realtor to steer them to the kind of neighborhood they want. More often than not they get the agent of the day who is simply out for the money. Getting a house under these circumstances can ruin your life in that city.
I´m sure there are some good agents but there are a lot more losers.
Interesting discussion; what do you think of virutal staging?
Here’s how it works: A real estate agent e-mails photos of a vacant home to a stager, who digitally adds tables, chairs, lamps, art work and other items to make the space look more inviting. The agent uses the enhanced photos for his Web site, the Multiple Listing Service, flyers and other advertising.
Often times someone travels to a strange city to look at properties because they need a place to live when a job transfer takes them to that city. Time is limited and They rely on a realtor to steer them to the kind of neighborhood they want. More often than not they get the agent of the day who is simply out for the money. Getting a house under these circumstances can ruin your life in that city.
I´m sure there are some good agents but there are a lot more losers.
Patek Philippe. Patek Philippe. Patek Philippe.
Yes, I really do have one. I´m reading the name from off the dial.
“Do they think the fair haired golden boy sitting next to the older man will be the offspring they spawn when they purchase a Phillippe Patek wristwatch?”
This is the only one of those examples that Im familiar with Kathleen. Of course the difference is that they’re not selling the actual people, theyre selling the watch. If the watch looked differently in the pic as on my wrist then I would definitely say that it was deceptive.
Eg. if you photoshopped 7 Ferraris outside a building that you were selling I wouldnt think of it as deceptive. But if you change what the actual bldg looks like then it is deceptive.
dont worry about it kathleen. i doubt you want MoD or most any other person on here as your client anyway. they would waste way too much of your time.
but i’m sure you already knew that. your arguments are sound.
what some people seem to forget is that listing agents dont work for the general public. they work for their clients. and if their client is selling a home then their obligations are to show that home in the best possible light.
and why do you people always assume that its the realtors who give two shits if the sales price is confidential? we don’t. some of our clients do.
[Editor’s Note: An idea of who “those time wasters” are: The Average SocketSite Reader (Is Anything But).]
anon$random – so showing a property “in the best possible light” means photoshopping the pictures so the house and surrounding streets look different then they actually are?
Please. It’s dishonest and unethical, pure and simple.
wahhhh, its unethical, wahhh.
no sfar members should ever be able to own or use photoshop again. period. and they’re ALL liars.
wahhh. unethical.
Congrats, anon$random – the bar for Realtors has been set low enough on this site, and you just limbo-ed right under it.
why is no crying ouit to stop Clay Siebert line drawings? This is the same thing.
“i doubt you want MoD or most any other person on here as your client anyway. they would waste way too much of your time. “
Heeeyy ! I’ve been extremely efficient with agent’s time. I do 100% of my own research and legwork and only involve an agent when putting together an offer. If my agent thinks that there’s no chance that my bid will win, we just punt. Total time : 5 minute phone call if we decide not to place an offer, maybe 30 minutes to assemble the contract if an offer is placed. More time of course if the offer is accepted or if there are counters but of course by that point the odds are much better for a large payoff if a deal goes through.
But if you consider a buyer who refuses to overbid just for the sake of winning is a waste of time, then I’m guilty as charged.
“why is no crying [q]uit to stop Clay Siebert line drawings? This is the same thing.”
Hardly ! Does anyone confuse a drawing for reality these days ? But when you look at a photo there’s an assumption that it portrays what the eye would see.
Maybe that’s a hangover from the old film days when photos were much much more time consuming and expensive to edit. Perhaps we are moving into an era when all photos will be suspect. I sure suspect the photos included in RE listings now. Removing power lines takes about 5 minutes on the computer. In the old days that job would take hours and if you screw up, you have to start all over again with another print. On the computer, you just click “undo”.
Here’s a suggestion to RE associations : request that heavily edited photos (like the awesome photo at the top of this article) be clearly labeled as “PHOTO ILLUSTRATION”. I think that would satisfy everyone. Sellers could continue to doctor photos and buyers would be advised that the photo doesn’t necessarily represent the property being marketed.
Socketsite should have to pay a licensing fee to use photos others have paid photographers good money to take and yes, sometimes to photoshop. This photo has been taken out of its intended context, akin to a brochure. It has been placed into a for profit newsy context (“the inside scoop on 2201 Baker.”) R.e. photographers are beginning to insert language limiting use for precisely this reason or similar.
We have a standard.
Fair and honest is the real estate standard.
Distortions so extreme they clash with reality (my personal favs are 1200 square foot five bedroom homes) are quickly fouled out, and make for entertaining reading on a rainy evening.
The truth about home buying is the buyer should
always look carefully, & seek expert advice to verify items outside of the buyers realm of expertise. contractors, soil, structural engineers, pest inspectors, roofers et al,
Reserving my right to photoshop
and crop till I drop…
(My sins include : photoshop out rain off a sidewalk, evened out curtains in windows. Removed a truck in front of an entrance to a building. Once we changed a color of a parked car on the block to match tone in the composition.
Are these really real estate crimes?
No they do nothing to distort the home.
You will not reign in my divine sense of design.
Kathleen – there’s a difference between doing what you did (simply showing how the property might look) and distorting reality through photoshop (removing telephone wires and poles, changing the angle of a street to appear flat).
All photos are illustrations. They are not real.
Kethleen, you couldn’t have proved my point any better!
“Congrats, anon$random – the bar for Realtors has been set low enough on this site, and you just limbo-ed right under it.”
what does this mean? this site’s posters CONSTANTLY bash realtors.
i agree with anon$random..wahh wahh wahhhh, its unethical, wahhh. so many crybabies here.
What about architect’s presentation images? Or interior design drawings? Realtors are not the only profession that choose images that make their product look better than it really is.
anonarch – the big difference is that drawings made by interior designers and architects present the home as it MIGHT appear. In other words, the finished product may very well look like the drawings – as opposed to photoshopping done by realtors, who take what is actually there and distort it to make the product more pleasing to the eye.
Good Point Fishchum. I often comment that my big stress is caused by whether or not the finished product will look like my drawings.
I have to admit that the photoshop of the view out the bedroom window on the 1133 Taylor listing above is insulting. (as an example)
anonarch – Exactly. If I didn’t know SF and saw the Taylor St. bedroom photo and thought, “wow, I’d love to wake up to that” went and viewed the property, how would I feel when I got there and realized it was a complete fake?
fischum- you’d probabaly feel exactly the same as when you woke up today.
No, I’d be pissed that the product being sold was clearly NOT the product being advertised. Then I’d think wow, what else is this realtor willing to lie about?
@ anonn Socketsite should have to pay a licensing fee to use photos others have paid photographers good money to take . . . . This photo has been taken out of its intended context.
The fact that the photo has been re-presented in a different context and for a different purpose gets you most of the way to the “fair use” exception to copyright. This would not be a worthwhile lawsuit for one of these photographers to sink a bunch of attorney fees into bringing.
Shza is exactly right. And the photographer couldn’t sue to enforce anything unless he/she has paid the $35-$65 copyright registration fee to register the photo with the copyright office. I’m a big supporter of artists’ and writers’ rights, and I think it would be peachy if the editor did offer some nominal sum to the photographer, but he can rest pretty easy that there are no legal consequences for failing to do so.
Nobody said anything about photographers suing anybody. I’m telling you what I’ve read in two different photographers’ use language lately, and I have no idea about the legality or litigious ability. It will probably be a moot point before too long IMO. “Image protect” options that third party software groups offer likely be built into most web publishing tools that don’t already have them soon enough. Regardless, this site tries to pretend it is newsy while it takes its pictures from brochures. Those of you arguing about the images ought to understand that fact.
I “understand that fact” perfectly well but it is a total non sequitur. What exactly are you trying to establish? There’s no logical inconsistency between (a) saying that it’s unethical for real estate agents to misrepresent a product by manipulating an image (b) doing so on a blog that did not unnecessarily pay someone for its fair use of that image.
Non sequitir? That’s your opinion. I find the disconnect between ignoring one arguably unethical presentation and the need to lambaste another ironic. I guess your mileage varies, Shza.
Accuser: That man is a thief!
Thief: Yes, but let’s change the subject, shall we, and talk about the fact that my accuser is fat.
No.
Accuser: That man is a forger.
Witness: Perhaps. But this is an unlicensed lithograph shop that you’re standing in.
What is with all of the legal threats against this site being posted by realtors? First LMRiM is insulted and told if he posted any forecasts or econimic opinions, this site would have numerous legal actions brought against it and LMRiM would get a knock on the door from the SEC. NOW, realtors are feeling their bitter power and are saying you cannot post images of homees for sale for news and discussion? I believe the Chicago Real Estate blog Cribchatter may have had to remove most pictures of listings because of legal threats, while a postive “now is a great time to buy” Chicago Blog seems to have no problem posting images of listings.
Spin it however you want, fluj, the subject under discussion is whether or not photoshopping pictures by an agent is unethical and dishonest or merely “advertising”.
I’ve maintained several times that when you distort or remove something that would normally appear, it’s dishonest and unethical. I have yet to hear anything that would convince me otherwise, least of all your comment on the legality of SS using photos on its own site.
Again, where did I say anything about anything being illegal? Nowhere. I said what I thought Socketsite should do, and what photographers are including in contracts. I’m not interested in your piddly little discussion about photoshopping. Apparently you don’t understand that the blog format IS part and parcel with the message. Too bad. Again, Socketsite could at least take the time to photoshop the telephone wires back in to the “scoop.” LOL.
the Chicago Real Estate blog Cribchatter may have had to remove most pictures of listings because of legal threats, while a postive “now is a great time to buy” Chicago Blog seems to have no problem posting images of listings
Who is paying for what on the various Chicago blogs? Nobody is stopping bloggers from dabbling in photography for their “scoops.”
So you’re not interested in my “piddly little comments” about photoshopping? Then why chime in? It wouldn’t be to deflect a negative light over your fellow real estate agents, would it? Nah.
Sorry, but when I see b**ls**t I call people on it. It’s a shame you can’t.
I brought up a separate, and in my view, related issue. Sorry you didn’t find it interesting. If you want my honest opinion I do not understand why people bother to photshop out telephone wires. It can only backfire nowadays. But keep on talking about it by all means. It’ll go away, along with the rest of the photos blogs like this one don’t pay for.
Anonn, wouldn’t realtors rather have their photoshop images such as shown with 1233 Bosworth above? The Bosworth images exclude the power pole, overhead lines, and neighboring properties which are not very attractive. I would think a realtor would want the most favorable images being used on discussion sites vs. images that show a less attractive perspective of their listing?
“Realtors” (awful bogeymen) or “clients” (sellers: your friends, relatives, and neighbors)?
Or both of these groups?
Also, has anyone ever seen “Crumb” ? He makes a point about the “crap” that fills up every day lives. The detritus of human western life. Telephone wires, light interchanges, etc. He says we by and large don’t even see them. But he makes a point to include them in his art. I submit that these sort of r.e. portraits actually enhance these things. Maybe taking them out is more true than not?
LOL
“Maybe taking them [i.e. ugly powerlines] out is more true than not? “
I’m sure you’ve seen the comments here from people who live in or have lived in homes with spectacular views. You know the ones that go like “I enjoyed the view for the first year, but after that the “wow” factor wore off. It was funny when visitors would come over and swoon over the view that I was over”.
So should marketing materials also replace view shots with just a blank sky, since ultimately everyone gets jaded to their own view ? By your argument, that would be a more true picture.
Kathleen:
Please don’t get caught up in this.
Most of your critics here… one in particular, live in rent controlled apartments (and always will) and resent you the same way they resent the guy selling suits at Brooks Brothers. Just like they can’t afford cufflinks to the suit, they can’t afford the furniture to fill the house you’re selling.
It’s a great house… market it however you want.
Here’s an funny case of real estate agent deception from across the pond : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/kent/8282368.stm
Check out the video.
Pretty humorous that the property description goes into details of the proximity to natural parks without even mentioning that there are two huge nuclear reactors in the back yard.
While reported as “confidential” on the MLS, the sale of 2201 Baker Street ended up recording with an actual sale price of $5,800,000.